[HPforGrownups] Re: DH as Christian Allegory

[IreneMikhlin]

No: HPFGUIDX 173521

Sydney wrote:

> What is she giving us in Slytherin House? I'm not trying to be
> provocative, I'm just laying out what it is we're looking at here.
> This book has given us a population characterized by 'ambition' and
> 'cunning', they are often described as having 'greedy' expressions.
> They always seem to be in positions of power and have more money than
> seems right. They're not admitted into certain clubs and quite right
> too. They can't be trusted-- their loyalties are not those of the rest
> of society. In a war they will probably run or switch sides or try to
> profit from the suffering of others. They manipulate the government
> from behind the scenes to their own purposes, using money and mesmeric
> powers. They keep themselves to themselves and never fit in; who they
> are seems to be partly by birth-- established by nasty inbreeding--,
> partly by belief, and partly by some invisible taint.  
> 
> They killed Harry Potter and refused to accept his Salvation.


I love and adore your for saying that. When Dumbledore said to Snape "we 
sort too soon", something that amounts to "you should have been a 
Gryffindor", it was like a knife to my heart. Because when you grow as a 
  Jew in an antisemitic country, like I did, you hear that sort of thing 
a lot, from well-meaning people that try to cheer you up: "you are not a 
real proper Jew like those horrible nasty ones, you are OK, we really 
consider you one of us."

That's what Dumbledore is essentially saying, and that's why Snape 
reacts this way.

Also, Rowling's message about choices is a total cheat, and I should 
have seen it by book 2. When Dumbledore explains to Harry how he was 
different from Voldie by the virtue of his choices, apparently, Harry 
made the better choice by asking to be put "not in Slytherin". Could he 
be a Slytherin, and then by his actions choose to be a good person, 
different from Voldemort? Noooo, just the choice of Slytherin in and of 
itself would have put him on the road to evil, apparently.

Irene